Lauren Marinigh

If any of you have ever read my angry tweets in regards to my hatred towards QR codes and wondered; “What’s wrong with QR codes?” Here is what is wrong with them:

Marketers don’t use them effectively

Marketers and companies like to think that they’re using QR codes effectively but when you see QR codes placed in the most ridiculous places, it really makes you wonder what their definition of effective is. People are overusing QR codes to the extreme, that they aren’t even thinking about the practicality of where they’re placing them before hand. Like this image to the right, how does one scan the inside of their bottle? Or another example was on my mushrooms the other day. Why on earth would I want to go out of my way to scan my mushrooms to find out more about them? Come on people, we’re so much smarter than this!

Is anyone tracking this data?

My main question about the use of QR codes is how effective are your results that inspire you to continue to use these silly little boxes? Are you even tracking to see how many people are scanning them? When I continue to see QR codes in the silliest of places, I realize that this company really, really must not care about the effectiveness of their marketing. I also am curious on the results of those that do place their QR codes in practical places. Anyone offer some insight on this?

They are so damn ugly

Seriously though, there’s nothing worse than a beautiful poster or signage that has an ugly QR code smacked in the middle of it. QR codes aren’t attractive and there’s really no way to make them attractive. They basically just taint all that beautiful creative work you had done and to be honest, kind of make you look cheap.

Ain’t nobody got time for that

Lets be real, no matter how badly I wanted to win a contest, or how badly I wanted to receive information. I wouldn’t go out of my way to download an app and scan a QR code. Customers are lazy, even the most un-lazy people are lazy. They don’t have time to go out of their way for information, they want information right then or there, or just a direct link to the information without having to go through the process of downloading apps & scanning. Speaking of a large inconvenience, they also require you to have internet access the majority of the time. What if I don’t have service or a data plan? Yes people like that still exist.

Let’s be honest, QR codes are not a cool thing and even if for some odd reason you’re seeing great results with QR codes, I can almost guarantee there’s something else out there that will show you even better results. Now I leave you with this great blog I found on WTF QR Codes, placed in the silliest of places.